


Quiz Night

by dafna



Category: Peep Show
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:veracious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dafna/pseuds/dafna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark explains to his diary why it's Vaclav Havel's fault that Jeremy bollocksed up quiz night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiz Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veracious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veracious/gifts).



> Thanks to Soupytwist and Luna for the last-minute beta-ing. Any errors are mine, obviously.

Dear Diary,

I always wanted a dog, have I said that before? A nice big fluffy dog who would be happy to see me and who I could teach tricks and who would never ever leave me for another owner. Dad hated dogs, of course. Said they made a big mess and always tried to hump your leg. So instead I got Jeremy.

I mention this, diary, because sometimes it seems to me that a dog couldn't possibly make less of a mess than what I woke to this morning; every book out from the shelf, papers everywhere and in the middle of the floor, Jeremy, passed out cold next to an empty bottle of Ponche crema that Toni brought back from holiday that one time, not to mention the inevitable puddle of sick. And of course last night's washing up still to be done.

A dog would have jumped up to greet me, but Jeremy just opened one eye after I turned on the telly and said, "Oi, mate, what day is it?" I told him it was Wednesday, which was true. I used to make up days, but it was never as much fun as you'd think.

"All ready with the quiz then?" I asked. Not that I planned to cheat, but if Jeremy's idea of general knowledge was 20 questions about the early tracks of Bloc Party, then maybe I would find a way to arrive late enough that I could just eat crisps and wait for the whole thing to be over.

"It's all in here," Jeremy said, now sitting up and tapping the side of his head with his finger. "It's going to be brilliant. All in here -- ow!" Honestly, diary, only Jeremy could manage to poke _himself_ in the eye.

Work has been more bearable than usual lately, what with Johnson coming on board and giving the whole place a big shaking up. Or at least saying he's going to give it a big shaking up -- I'm not really sure what that means. But I like it when he gathers us all together and looks deep into our eyes and your heart beats faster and it's like Branagh in _Henry V_ with the soaring music and Sophie says don't be ridiculous, it just means we're not making our numbers.

Had a great chance to impress him in a meeting today, though, Johnson, I mean. Plus I made Jeff look a right loser. But then Johnson -- Alan, he told me today to call him Alan! -- said we should go out and celebrate and I had to admit that I'd promised to go to Jeremy's rubbish quiz night. "It's the first reason he's had to leave the flat in weeks," I said, thinking, bollocks to that, if Jez were a true friend he'd understand that Alan, I mean, the job, came first.

"I like a good pub quiz," Johnson said, rubbing his hands together that forceful way he does. Have I mentioned, diary, how big and strong his hands are? I wouldn't mind doing trust exercises again if it meant falling back onto him.

But then that sodding suck-up Jeff pushed his way in and said he loved a good quiz night, too, and Sophie looked cheerful the way she does and utter cocknobs, suddenly they were all coming to the pub as well.

It was because of Toni that Jez fell into this quizmaster thing in the first place. Something about a friend of a friend and a last-minute stag trip to Prague -- you have to wonder, really, if hordes of drunken Englishmen is really what Vaclav Havel had in mind all those years ago. Anyway, communism fell, the cheap airfares came in and as a result Jeremy got the nod and had spent the last week arguing with me about the capital of Kansas (_not_ Kansas City, not that he believed me) and whether there is a winning strategy for _Deal or No Deal_ (there isn't).

Johnson gave me a lift in his car so we arrived ahead of the others. Not early enough to catch Jez sober, however, since somehow the idiot had got it in his head that he was actually going to be paid for standing against the bar and shrieking out questions about footballers. "But it's OK, Mark," he said, hanging onto the bar with one hand while waving a pitcher in the other, "I've got a plan. They said all the lager I could drink so, see, all I have to do is drink enough to make them wish they'd paid me the thirty quid they should have paid me and then they'll see."

Dogs don't drink, do they, diary?

Jeremy's friend Hans turned up not long after, and it's a good thing I had Johnson already on my team, or I could tell that Jez was planning to pair us up. No fucking way, mate. As it was, Jez foisted him on some poor girl he'd met earlier in the day and convinced to come round. Apparently Jeremy had decided he needed a few more facts for bonus rounds and so had gone along to the bookshop where he found both this girl, Dani, and such scintillating bits of general knowledge as the fact that Jordan once auditioned for _Baywatch_.

Right, and that will give you an idea of the general tenor of the evening's questions. Jeremy had promised me at least one proper category, but at the end of two rounds that smirking git Jeff was ahead of us all. "Really, Sophie," I said, "do you want to date someone who knows that much about Take That?" She didn't reply, possibly because she had her head bent down with Jeff, giggling, and possibly because I didn't actually say it aloud.

"The next round," Jeremy announced, "will be history." Finally, I thought, a chance to get my own back, dazzle Johnson with a few insights stolen from Simon Schama.

"First question, what was the official name of the Dambusters operation?" Ha, I thought, not so smug now, are we, Jeff? I looked over and Sophie was petting his hand. Dammit. No matter, onward to victory.

"Second question, which two dams were actually successfully breached in the -- "

"Oi," said Jeff. "Is this entire round going to be about the Dambusters?"

I smiled confidently at Johnson. "We've got this, mate," I said.

Jeremy continued. "Third question, what was the name of Guy Gibson's dog?"

Oh, bloody hell, that fucking sodding bloody useless .... Johnson looked over at me and said, "well, Mark, I thought this was your subject?" Jeff looked over from the next table and smirked. No fucking way was I writing the answer down. What the fuck was Jeremy thinking to ask that? What was next, how many Indians we killed at Amritsar? There was the history you talked about and the history you read quietly to yourself and bloody racist dog names fell squarely in the latter.

Needless to say, diary, Jeff won. Or really, Jeff and Sophie, but Jeff was the one hoisting pint after pint with his winnings, telling everyone he was the true brain at JLB.

Hans passed out in the loo. Johnson left with Dani, the girl from the bookshop. On the way home, Jeremy tried to pee on a lamp post. I didn't give him any biscuits.


End file.
